1. Search Strategies for a Successful Literature Review
Presented by Jamie Saragossi –January 2017

2. Goals for next 60 minutes Library business How to access our resources
Creating the Question
Selecting the Database
Developing your strategy
Live demo
How to follow up

3. Librarians are on staff Monday – Friday 9am-5pm (or by appointment)
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Librarians are on staff Monday – Friday 9am-5pm (or by appointment)
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Health Sciences Library
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4. The Virtual Library 90% of our books are now online.
Quick Links to Top Resources
Access to our databases from any computer *Net ID
Connect with reference librarian via Chat
‘Order Articles & Books’ through Inter-library loan

5. Accessing our databases

6. Searching for eBooks & eJournals
Start at the library’s homepage
Click on Find eJournals & eBooks A-Z
Search for your specific title

7. PICO: Creating an answerable question
Identify the topic or problem that you’re going to investigate with your literature review. Often helps to translate into search when put in PICO format.
P – Patient or Population
I – Intervention
C – Comparison or Control
O – Outcome

8. Research Databases
Database subscriptions supplied by Stony brook University are in the hundreds. To conduct a thorough literature review, use at least 3.
Better to start with broader databases and then narrow so you’re not missing essentials. (suggested resources)
PubMed (casts a wide net) –mostly biomedical literature
Use MESH searching to locate specific relevant terms
Filters can be applied to narrow by article type/study design, age, year etc.
Scopus (casts a wide net) - includes health sciences and social sciences
keyword searching, more results but perhaps less specific
Easy linking for reference and citation searching
Cochrane Library – systematic reviews in health care.

9. Developing your Strategy
Your literature review should be thorough and exhaustive.
Consider synonyms for each of your terms
Addiction = dependence, substance abuse
Avoid Acronyms
Spell out your terms, avoid jargon.
Use Controlled Vocabularies
Databases’ preferred terminology for a concept. Easy way to organize and retrieve articles.
PubMed – MeSH
Not EVERY database has a controlled vocabulary.

10. Combining Search Terms
BOOLEAN
Connect unique terms with “AND”
Addiction AND adolescents
Connect similar terms/synonyms with “OR”.
(Addiction OR substance abuse) AND (adolescents OR teenagers)
Truncation
To include variations on a root word many databases provide advance search options.
Addict*
Would include results for addiction, addictive etc.

11. Systematic Reviews
“Systematic reviews focus on peer-reviewed publications about a specific health problem and use rigorous, standardized methods for selecting and assessing articles. A systematic review may or may not include a meta-analysis, which is a quantitative summary of the results.”
Last, J. M. (2001) A Dictionary of Epidemiology. Fourth Edition. Oxford University Press
Systematic Reviews are research projects that can take up to 1 year to complete.
If you are interested in conducting a systematic review; consult

12. Managing your References
Citation Management
Includes NIH Public Access Policy compliance
Endnote
Tutorials, consultations and workshops available to assist with installation and use
For additional help
Check for library workshops

13. How to Follow up OR Consultations with a Health Sciences Librarian
Visit us 3rd floor HSC, Rm 136
Check out our Youtube videos OR
Jamie Saragossi
Health Sciences Librarian